[2001-02-28-AJW] Yumiko Hotta vs Shinobu Kandori (Vale Tudo Rules)

[GSR]

A cautious start with both throwing out tentative strikes as they look to find their range.  Kandori bulrushes Hotta back into the corner where she unloads with rapid fire punches before dragging her to the mat.  Hotta pulls guard but Kandori frees herself pretty quickly and moves to side control.  She takes Hotta’s back, although doesn’t have the hooks in, allowing her to easily reverse her position and now she’s in Kandori’s guard.  Kandori uses a combination of power and momentum from the bottom to regain top control, as the official then resets them in the middle of the ring as they were close to falling through the ropes.  She survives the armbar, but is curled up with Hotta on her back and raining down blows.  Soccer kick to the sternum, Kandori scrambles to her feet, however a swift kick to the knee makes her easy prey for a take down.  Some more kicks from Hotta which don’t look like they’ve got much behind them.  Guillotine choke by Kandori although you can clearly see that she doesn’t have that locked in tightly under the neck.  Hotta forces the escape and delivers a short sharp head butt to her opponent.  Straight armbar attempt, Hotta frees herself and quickly applies a knee bar/heel hook submission that leads to the tap.

There are far more people qualified to talk about this match than me, but despite the ‘Vale Tudo’ rules this had to be a work right?  It’s pretty clear from when Kandori had Hotta backed into the corner and she was swinging wildly that those punches were being pulled and not connecting; the same could be said about Hotta’s kicks.  There were also glaring holes in the ground game such as the way they were easily reversing position due to the fact there wasn’t much of a struggle going on. They got me on the finish mind, which I thought was excellent, as was convinced Kandori was getting the win with that armbar, up to then though it had been pretty dull and uninspiring.

[ohtani's jacket]

This was supposed to be a shoot but it's hard to tell whether it was. I have my doubts, but it was worked like one which made it a hell of a lot more interesting than it would have been if it were a regular pro-wrestling match.